On the trail of great bread!

Stone-Baked Sourdough and Yeast Hybrid Loaf

Having experimented quite a bit with pure yeast doughs I got to know them and although they gradually developed a sourdough-like character after days in the refrigerator, they still seemed to be lacking compared with my normal sourdough. I went back into my library and had another read of the book “artisan breads every day” by Peter Reihart. I eventually made a recipe that was a synthesis of what he had in the book and my own experience of sourdough baking. This one used 250g of my own starter (a wet starter, not the more solid motherstarter that Peter uses). The full recipe is:

250g starter

750ml water

150g whole wheat flour

850g white bread flour

11g yeast

19g salt

After mixing it up I also did several turns, but I left it out too long before refrigetating and it grew very quickly even after I put it in the refrigerator. I ended up using half of it the same day for baking. The result was very good. It produced a huge loaf with amazing oven spring. The picture below doesn’t really make it easy to see just how big this one became. The structure was good, with irregular holes with caramelization in the larger holes. It was, as usual, delicious :).